Native Americans say they lived in the Montara homeland since the creator placed them there, and archaeology confirms their presence for more than 12,000 years. Over time they adapted to changing environments, and by the first European contact many tribal communities had long been spread across the San Francisco Peninsula. The Chiguan settled the area now known as Montara and managed their lands through careful pruning of selected plants and regular burning of grasslands to increase harvests of edible seeds, hazelnuts, acorns, and other plants important to their diet and economy. They hunted game on land and harvested fish, sea mammals, birds, sea weeds, and mollusks from the sea. Their regional economy used shell beads and ornaments as currency, and they traded their harvests with interior tribes for chipped stone tools, baskets, bowls, and other necessary goods. The Chiguan first encountered European explorers on October 30, 1769, and within seven years Mission Dolores and the San Francisco Presidio were founded. Local tribes were recruited as labor, subjugated by colonists, forced to give up their lands and lifeways, and many died from disease while also suffering violence and depression. In 1821 the Mexican Republic gained independence from Spain, mission estates passed into private ownership, and many Mission Indians became workers on cattle ranches and farms spreading from the coast into California's interior while Montara was known as Rancho El Corral de Tierra. After California became part of the United States in 1850, the discovery of gold brought an onslaught of new immigrants that devastated interior tribes. Descendants of the Chiguan and their Bay Area neighbors are now referred to as the Ohlone, and Ohlone families still visit places within their ancestral Bay Area homelands today.